BEGUM: CHARITY WORKER NOT PUNISHED FOR £13,000 BENEFIT SCAM
A woman who pocketed £13,000 in state benefits while working for a charity escaped punishment and was given more than seven years to pay the money back today (Weds).
Lovely (corr) Begum, 36, falsely declared she was unemployed when in fact she was working for north London charity Crossroads Care Camden, City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.
The mother-of-five was paid a total of £12,899.85 after receiving carer’s allowance between June 2006 until August last year.
The court heard Begum did look after her elderly mother-in-law at home but was ineligible for the handout because her earnings were too high.
Carer’s allowance is only available to those whose net income is below £100, and can only be claimed if at least 35 hours per week are spent looking after someone.
Begum, who moved to the UK from Bangladesh in 1993, is now repaying the money at a rate of just £40 per week, meaning it could take her seven and a half years to settle the debt.
Fadi Daoud, defending, said she had never been in trouble with the law before.
‘They are not the sort of family who ever come before the courts and they did not want anything to do with the system ever again,’ he said.
He added that the family was struggling to pay off its debts, and that Begum’s husband was expected to begin work in a restaurant in an effort to boost their income.
Imposing a two-year conditional discharge and ordering her to pay £85 costs, District Judge Caroline Tubbs told her it was a ‘serious matter to defraud public monies’.
‘But I have been persuaded that it is appropriate not to punish you but to impose a conditional discharge,’ she added.
‘If you commit no criminal offences in the next two years, that will be the end of the matter.
‘You have already entered into an agreement to repay the money you were overpaid, and you will keep that agreement up.’
Begum, of (flat 44), Candida Court, Clarence Way, Camden, north London, admitted making a false statement to obtain social security benefits and failing to notify the Department for Work and Pensions of a change of circumstances.
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